Harvey Mansfield’s (a philosopher who I learned to appreciate many years ago) opinion about America on its 250th birthday seems so appropriate to recite. We are actually a “paradox”. The US is both a young, brash nation AND the world’s oldest continuous democracy. The USA is a country that needs to renew itself every four years; and, it has within itself the youthfulness and maturity.
And so, the grand experiment with exceptionalism continues.
The SP continues to prophesize that the stock market (as it’s near its all-time high) was going to go into a dramatic sell-off. Obviously, we have all been wrong with the stock market before. At times, it seems like a bundle of emotions. However, the net profit margins in the S&P rose over 14% in the first quarter. This is the highest percentage net margin gain ever, and it is broad-based. It just followed-up another metric of the previous quarter of over 13%. It is a little hard for me to imagine projected profits rapidly deteriorating, thus generating a dramatic sell-off. As we piece this together, capitalism wins, again.
When socialism had trouble selling their ideas to a somewhat un-informed, and even gullible public years ago, there was no common enemy for socialists to rally around. So, the word capitalism was first used to separate the so-called “elite” with capital from those that had to live within this capitalistic society. However, if you follow socialism and you are an advocate, make sure that you understand the house you currently live will be owned by the public, not you! (There is no private ownership). If you are okay with that, then I could at least understand why you might want to support socialism.
So much of the world has experienced slavery, which was a known and accepted fact for centuries; blacks held Indians; Indians held Asians; It was not just whites. It was simply a disgraceful act that at the time was not clear how we needed to handle it. America out-grew slavery, and we should be so very proud of that accomplishment. However, I cannot help but think something like slavery is going on now! All students that have student loans are paying for new big buildings, elite professor salaries, and a college life that did not exist 50 years ago, but who is paying for it? The not-so-well off student that does not quite understand credit and obtains student loans cannot sometimes get paid off in 30 years. Is this not affecting young families, delaying housed purchasing, divorce, etc.? Bondage comes in all forms!
As far as industrial estate goes, build baby build. Sure, we all have a lot of tire kickers right now. However, it has to start someplace; and, the reality of the Trump years are upon us.
